


The Best-Laid Plans

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the second war heats up, Rita Skeeter is determined to look at things practically, rather than through any ideology, even when the people closest to her are concerned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best-Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Harry Potter or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!

Rita had explained everything several times, had stressed that this was a serious threat but that everything would be fine if her parents just followed her instructions, and had even gotten their trunks out and started packing for them, but they still just sat there staring at her like two exceedingly badly-executed paintings.  “But surely,” her mother said, not for the first time, “surely nothing would happen to us.”  Beside her, Rita’s father nodded earnestly.

Sometimes Rita couldn’t believe that she was the child of such a pair of Hufflepuffs.  She sucked in her breath.  “Yes, it would,” she said, none too gently.  “Your parents were Muggles, Mum, and so was Dad’s father.  You two lived through the last war, for heaven’s sake, and I don’t know how you can possibly sit around and be so la-di-da about it all.”  She flicked her wand to fold one of her mother’s nightgowns.

“It’s not going to go that far,” her father said.  “It couldn’t possibly.  The Ministry—”

“Is unstable,” Rita finished.  “As I’ve told you a million times.  Linda works there, and she knows.”  The mention of her best friend from Hogwarts seemed to have some effect on her parents, at least; her father fell silent, frowning, and her mother didn’t try to raise any more nonsensical objections.  Rita wasn’t exactly flattered to see that they trusted Linda’s word more than her own, but it wasn’t worth getting offended.  If anything would get them to stop resisting and agree to leave the country, so much the better. 

Rita flicked her wand again, opening the bureau drawers.  She went over to examine her father’s selection of shirts, talking as she did so.  “You have nothing to lose by going,” she said.  “If this whole thing blows over—which it won’t, but for the sake of argument—you can come right back.  You won’t be the only people going to France, and it’ll be easy enough for you.  I’ve arranged everything.  Now, do you want to come over here and pick out your own clothes?”

Her father was the first to approach the bureau, still frowning.  Her mother followed after a minute or two; she looked deeply upset.  “I still can’t believe this,” she said.  “I trust you and Linda, Rita, and if you really say that this might happen…but to think that people would just let this happen again…when we’ve been getting along so well for the past fifteen years…our friends, our neighbors…”  She sighed and shook her head.  “It seems incredible.”

Rita had no time to sympathize with an overly rosy view of human nature.  “Not everyone is your best friend, Mum,” she said. 

“It’s not a question of best friends,” her father said.  “Your mum’s right.  I certainly wouldn’t just stand by and let this sort of thing happen to anyone, friends or not.”  He hesitated.  “Perhaps we ought to stay, Rita, and try to help.  We can’t just run off—”

“No,” Rita said firmly.  “You can’t do anything to help.  You’d just be in danger.  Stop and think.”  She dumped a pile of socks into her father’s trunk. 

Her parents were quiet for a while then, and they took part in the packing at least, although they still had frowns on their faces.  As she began to go through the drawers of her bedside table, however, Rita’s mother said, quietly, “You’re not coming with us, dear?”

Rita hadn’t explicitly said this yet; perhaps her mother understood her a little better than she sometimes thought.  “I don’t need to,” she said.  “You’re a witch and a wizard, after all.  I’ll be safe here.”

“Well, yes,” said her mother.  “But what…what are you going to do?”  Why do you want to stay in a place that would persecute your parents, was what she clearly meant.

“I’m sure that our Rita will do something worthwhile,” her father said, and he clearly envisioned her becoming some sort of freedom fighter, which was beyond absurd.

“I’ll keep up with my work,” Rita said.  “It’s certainly going to be an exciting time for it.”

“Your work,” her father said.  “Of course.”  Perhaps he was adjusting his picture of Rita Skeeter, freedom fighter, to a picture of Rita Skeeter, crusading journalist on behalf of Muggleborn rights.  It was hardly a less absurd one.  It wasn’t as though Rita agreed with the Death Eaters’ ideology, of course.  She wasn’t much for any sort of ideals, and that applied equally to rosy conceptions that one reporter could use the power of the pen to make the world a better place.  Writing on behalf of Muggleborn rights would be much more likely to get her killed than to make any change.  And so she would do what she could—make sure that her parents were safe and out of the country and then get back to business as usual. 

She wasn’t about to say any of this to her parents, though; they would doubtless find it disappointing, and she didn’t see any point in disappointing them now, when she wasn’t likely to see them again for some time (or ever, if things worked out in the Death Eaters’ favor).  She simply smiled, said, “I’ll have plenty to write about,” which was suitably vague, and then continued helping them with their packing.  Things were finished almost before she knew it, and she gave her parents last instructions, reminded them where they needed to go to get the portkey tomorrow and what it was going to look like, made them repeat back to her the phrase that they were going to use in letters to let her know that they were safe.

She embraced them, sinking into her father’s arms, then into her mother’s.  “Be safe, both of you,” she said.  “Don’t try anything stupid.”  Vaguely insulting, perhaps, but she would rather see them alive and offended than dead.

“And you,” her father said.

“Of course.”  Rita let them have one last hug each.  Then, with a final “Be careful,” she waved and Disapparated.

 

She’d planned on going home for a while, but she somehow ended up in a London street, close to Marty’s flat.  She was half irritated with herself for it.  She and Marty hadn’t seen each other in a few months, after all, and she might just as well let Marty look after herself.  On the other hand, she still liked Marty quite a lot—their breakup, which Rita considered amicable enough, hadn’t changed that—and she didn’t know how much Marty knew about what was going on.  There would surely be no harm in letting her know, in giving her the opportunity to book a spot on a portkey if she wanted to do so.  She smiled wryly to herself—spending time with her parents seemed to have made her unreasonably altruistic—as she walked to Marty’s flat and knocked on the door.

Marty opened it.  She looked the same as she had when Rita had seen her last, briefly, at some bar where they’d waved and said hello.  “Rita!” she said.  “This is a bit of a surprise.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” Rita said smoothly.  “Bad time?”

“Not at all,” said Marty.  “It’s good to see you again, actually.  I’ve been thinking about seeing if you wanted to catch up.  Come on in.”

Rita followed her into the living room, where she sat in her usual chair.  “Do you want anything?” Marty asked.  “Tea or something stronger?”

Rita laughed.  “The latter.  You know me.”  Marty laughed too, saying that she would have the same, and moved off to the kitchen.  She came back a few minutes later with two glasses of firewhiskey, which she set down on the table.  She settled into the chair opposite Rita then, picking up her glass. 

“How’ve you been?” Marty asked. 

“Quite well, thanks,” said Rita.  “Hard at work as usual.”  Unsurprisingly, Marty didn’t ask her anything further; she had never fully approved of what Rita wrote.  Rita smiled in amusement and said, “How about you?  How’s work?”

“Things are going well,” Marty said.   “We’re gearing up for the big fundraising drive around now.  The usual thing.”  Marty worked for a Vanishing Sickness non-profit; it kept her busy, but she was passionate about the work.  “Haven’t been doing much else because of that.”

“Naturally,” said Rita.  “I know how you get.” 

Marty smiled.  “It suits me, though.  How’re your parents?”

As good an opening as any.  “They’re leaving for France tomorrow.”

Marty knew her well enough that she didn’t say anything idiotic like “Sounds fun” or “Going on holiday?”  Instead she pressed her lips together and nodded.  “Things are getting bad.”

Rita was glad that Marty understood the reason; it made everything simpler.  “I wasn’t sure how much you knew,” she said.  “I’ve been talking a lot with Linda, and she’s told me how unstable things are at the Ministry.  Those in the know are getting out while they can.  It would still be easy enough for you to get a portkey—”

Marty cut her off.  “I’m not going anywhere.”

Well, that was that.  Typical Marty.  “It’s your choice,” Rita said.  “If you feel that you’re safe—”

Marty snorted.  “Of course I don’t feel that I’m safe, Rita,” she said.  “I’m not a moron.  But I’m not a coward either.  I’m going to stay here.”

What with her parents and now Marty, Rita had really had it with nobility for the day.  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Marty,” she snapped.  “It’s not a question of being a coward.  Your life is certainly going to be in danger if it isn’t already, and there is nothing that you can do about it by staying here.”

“Nothing that you would do about it, you mean,” Marty said.  “I’m not about to let myself be driven out of my country just because some lunatics have got it into their heads that I’m less of a witch because of who my parents are.”

“So you’re going to wind up dead just to prove something?  And everyone should do the same?”

“I’m not talking about what everyone should do,” Marty said.  “I’m not criticizing your parents, if that’s what you’re on about.  But I couldn’t live with myself if I left.”  She might say that she wasn’t talking about what others should do, but she certainly sounded like it.  She had that tone in her voice that she’d always had when they argued, when she held up _Witch Weekly_ and said, “You really have nothing better to write about than the non-existent dating troubles of some teenagers?”  Rita believed that Marty wasn’t criticizing her parents, but she wasn’t anywhere near so sure that Marty wasn’t criticizing her.

“Of course,” Rita said.  “I’d almost forgotten how much better you were than everyone else.”

Marty’s cheeks flushed, and she slammed her glass down on the table.  “I know that you have no time for morals and that you probably don’t give two shits whether Death Eaters are running the country—”

“Yes, I give so few shits that I came to talk to you about it—”

“Oh, don’t give me that, Rita,” said Marty.  “You care about me and about your parents, which is all well and good, but you can’t fool me into thinking that you care…that you care about it in the abstract.  Let’s say the Death Eaters took over the _Prophet_.  You wouldn’t stop writing for them, would you?”

“No,” Rita said.  “Because it would probably get me killed and it would have absolutely no effect.” 

She had never seen Marty look quite so disgusted.  “That’s despicable,” she said.  “You’d happily work for a regime that wants to kill Muggleborns when so many people you know—your own mother—”

Somehow the fact that she’d chosen Rita’s mother as her example rather than herself made Rita even angrier; could Marty never think about herself?  “I’m not sitting on my arse quite so much as you seem to think,” she said.  “I’m getting my parents out, for one thing, and if I don’t see the point in risking my neck any further that’s my prerogative.  And let me remind you that we’re not together anymore and I don’t really care what you think about how I live my life.”    

“This is just like you,” said Marty.  “Just like you.  Never caring about anything so long as it doesn’t affect you.” 

“And this is just like you,” Rita shot back.  “Running your life based on some completely unrealistic ideals.”  She got up; there was no point in continuing this.  “I’ll leave you to it, then.  It was so pleasant to drop by.  We must do it again sometime.”

Marty followed her to the door, not saying anything.  Just as Rita was about to leave, however, she spoke.  “I just don’t understand how you can see things the way you do.”

“I know,” Rita said, and, with a last nod, she closed the door.

 

They usually met at a café for coffee on Sundays, but, times being what they were, Rita went to Linda’s flat later that afternoon.  Linda opened the door almost immediately.  “I’m finishing packing,” she said as they walked into the flat.  Rita took a seat on Linda’s bed and watched her methodically organize toiletries for a while; they had long since passed the place where Linda would have felt obligated to entertain her or even offer an apology, even if either of them had been big on apologies in the first place.

The two of them had become friends at the start-of-term feast their first year at Hogwarts, largely because Rita had realized that Linda, from a Muggle family called Weaver, was more likely to value her as a friend than the assortment of Blacks and Bulstrodes and Lestranges and Selwyns that were sitting around them at the Slytherin table.  The friendship had lasted, though, and they still saw each other regularly, sometimes passing on information that the other might find relevant—something discussed at the Ministry or scooped in a less-than-orthodox reporting session—and sometimes just taking the opportunity to spend an afternoon with someone else who saw the world with a distinctly unsentimental eye.  Rita had occasionally dated women who were jealous of her relationship with Linda.  On the one hand, Linda had lasted and they hadn’t, which seemed to prove their point.  On the other hand, it was completely absurd, because she and Linda had never had the slightest romantic interest in each other, Linda because she was straight and Rita because the thought of sex with someone she’d known since she was eleven seemed unbearably dull.  Her affection for Linda had nothing to do with the sexual.  There weren’t many other people who were quite such unapologetic Slytherins—poised to get ahead without any grand idealistic vision gumming up the works—and to have one as a friend was worth quite a lot.

“How’d it go with your parents?” Linda asked, closing her last trunk and taking a seat atop it. 

“They wrung their hands a bit,” said Rita, “but I did manage to talk them round in the end.  Your name helped a lot.  Sweet Linda.”  Linda smirked then, and Rita smirked back.  “How’d it go with your family?”

“Mum and Dad were receptive,” said Linda.  “They’ve been wanting to travel since he retired anyway, so I played up the holiday angle, played down the death and destruction angle.  I was pretty straightforward with Cathleen, and she seemed to get it.  Beth was livid.”  She sighed.  “I mean, you know what she’s like.  And she just doesn’t get what we’re like.  I can’t tell her what to do, of course.  I’ll try again, I suppose, maybe get Mum or Cathleen to talk to her.”

Rita nodded; this was far from the first time that Linda and her youngest sister had failed to see eye-to-eye, and the differences between the Muggle and wizarding worlds obviously didn’t help.  “That’s all you can do,” she said. 

“I know,” Linda said.  “And I know that she and Ben and the girls have a whole life here.  But, I mean, so do I, and you don’t see me wringing my hands!  She’s just being more than stupid.”

Rita nodded again.  “That’s Beth, though,” she said.  “It’s always taken you forever to get anything through to her.”  Linda nodded back, and Rita said, after a pause, “I saw Marty earlier.  I wanted to talk to her about all this.”

“Oh?” said Linda.  “How’d she take it?”

“Not much better than Beth,” said Rita.  “Different reasons, of course.  She, of course, could never live with herself if she didn’t stay here to prove that she’s as much a witch as anybody, and she thinks I’m morally decrepit for not taking some sort of public stand.”

Linda snorted.  “Fat lot of good that would do,” she said.  “Good old Marty, grandstanding as usual.  Not that I dislike her.  She’s just so…so…”

“She’s such a Gryffindor,” Rita said.

“Exactly,” said Linda.  She laughed, and Rita grinned back at her; it was nice to know that she wasn’t the only person in the world who wanted to look at this whole thing practically. 

“I am going to miss you,” she said.  “Don’t you start getting noble and risking your life.”

“As if I ever would,” Linda said.  “I’ll miss you too, Rita.  It’s going to be weird—leaving my job and France and all that.  But I suppose I’ll find things to do.”

“Think you’ll be back?” Rita asked.

Linda was quiet for a few moments.  “I’m not sure, really.  I mean, it’s certainly possible that the Death Eaters will be defeated again.  But then…maybe they won’t.”  She rose from her seat then and pressed Rita into a quick hug.  “I really hope to be back someday, though.”

“So do I,” Rita said, returning the hug.  “Goodbye, Linda.  Look after yourself, and try to write if you can.”

“Likewise,” said Linda.  “Goodbye.”

She was going to miss her parents and Linda, Rita thought as she arrived back at her own flat, but she had done what she could for them.  She took a seat at her desk and pulled a stack of papers and a quill towards herself.  She had a deadline later tonight, and she had to get to work.   


End file.
